He

Her adversaries have become her masters; Her enemies are complacent; For Yahweh has caused her grief Because of the greatness of her transgressions; Her infants have gone away As captives before the adversary.

Teth

Her uncleanness was in her skirts; She did not remember her future. Therefore she has gone down astonishingly; She has no comforter. “See, O Yahweh, my affliction, For the enemy has magnified himself!”

Kaph

All her people are sighing, seeking bread; They have given their desirable things for food To restore their souls. “See, O Yahweh, and look, For I am despised.”

Lamedh

“Is it nothing to all you who pass this way? Look and see if there is any pain like my pain Which was dealt severely to me, Which Yahweh grieved me with on the day of His burning anger.

Pe

Zion stretches out her hands; There is no one to comfort her; Yahweh has commanded concerning Jacob That the ones round about him should be his adversaries; Jerusalem has become an impure thing among them.

Tsadhe

“Yahweh is righteous; For I have rebelled against His command; Hear now, all peoples, And behold my pain; My virgins and my young men Have gone into captivity.

Resh

See, O Yahweh, for I am in distress; My inmost being is greatly disturbed; My heart is overturned within me, For I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; In the house it is like death.

The Anger of Yahweh

Aleph

How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion With a cloud in His anger! He has cast from heaven to earth The beauty of Israel, And has not remembered the footstool of His feet In the day of His anger.

Vav

And He has violently treated His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has brought His appointed meeting place to ruin. Yahweh has caused to be forgotten The appointed time and sabbath in Zion, And He has spurned king and priest In the indignation of His anger.

Zayin

The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered into the hand of the enemy The walls of her palaces. They have made a noise in the house of Yahweh As in the day of an appointed time.

Heth

Yahweh determined to bring to ruin The wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line; He has not turned His hand back from swallowing up, And He has caused rampart and wall to mourn; They have languished together.

Teth

Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; The law is no more. Also, her prophets find No vision from Yahweh.

Ayin

Yahweh has done what He purposed; He has completed His word Which He commanded from days of old. He has pulled down without sparing, And He has caused the enemy to be glad over you; He has exalted the might of your adversaries.

Resh

See, O Yahweh, and look! With whom have You dealt thus? Should women eat their offspring, The infants who were born healthy? Should priest and prophet be killed In the sanctuary of the Lord?

Tav

You called as in the day of an appointed time My terrors on every side; And there was no one who escaped or survived In the day of Yahweh’s anger. Those whom I gave birth to and reared, My enemy consumed them.

So I say, “My strength has perished, As well as my hopeful waiting which comes from Yahweh.”

Heth

The lovingkindnesses of Yahweh indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail.

“Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I wait for Him.”

Teth

Yahweh is good to those who hope in Him, To the soul who seeks Him.

It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of Yahweh.

Nun

Let us search out and examine our ways, And let us return to Yahweh.

Until Yahweh looks down And sees from heaven.

Qoph

I called on Your name, O Yahweh, Out of the lowest pit.

O Yahweh, You have seen my oppression; Judge my case.

Sin/ Shin

You have heard their reproach, O Yahweh, All their purposes against me.